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Dev felt some of the tension leave her body. Her fingers twined with his, drawing his attention back to her tired face. “I’m thinking Elisa and Willis might help us care for them. If we get the children’s bloodlust under control, then the two of them can help take care of them, until they mature enough to need individual servants.” A glimmer of something that might have been humor, if it hadn’t been clouded by shadows of the past day, passed through her blue eyes. “Your job managing my sheep will include an additional herd, I’m afraid. A far more unpredictable one.”
“We can negotiate better wages later. I expected the job to be a bit different than most.”
“They’ll never grow up. Never sexually mature,” she repeated.
“Maybe that’s a good thing. A man’s pecker can make him do a lot of daft things. Like fall in with a sharp-toothed sheila.” She gave him a narrow look. “Here I was thinking it was your overdeveloped sense of honor that gets you in such trouble.”
“Pot calling the kettle black, love. Let me give you more blood.” He was worried that she seemed to be getting noticeably paler.
“Not quite yet.” Drawing a deep breath, Danny moved her attention back to Lyssa’s dark eyes, the rim of green iris a faint glow of emerald fire in the candlelight. “I have a feeling my lady Lyssa has other things to say to me, and that she might be kinder about them if she feels I’m not up to full strength.”
“You ascribe qualities of mercy to me I may not have, Lady D,” Lyssa remarked. She glanced at Alistair. “My lord, will you please go check on these children? I want another set of eyes to confirm Ruskin’s actions, to help with our report to the Council, which will include what I expect was an unsanctioned making of these four vampires. You will need to accompany me and Lady Danny to Berlin, when she accounts for this matter. I will watch after Nina while you’re checking the grounds,” she added, glancing toward the woman.
Alistair nodded and withdrew. Then Lyssa looked toward Dev. Anticipating, he shook his head. “Danny needs blood,” he said stubbornly.
Dev.
“And your lady Daniela will have it. But you will obey my direction. Go stand there.” Lyssa pointed to the other side of the door where Thomas had slipped in and taken up a silent post. When she looked in his direction, he spoke.
“Aapti was in the upper chamber, my lady. She died in her bed, it appears.” It jolted Dev, the reminder that the death of a vampire meant the loss of more than one life, though he was more concerned about the additional pain that crossed his lady’s face. Surely she’d weighed the consequences of her actions. But it didn’t make it easier, he knew.
“Go to the door, Devlin,” Lyssa said, and that cold note was in her voice. “You may stay in this room, not because you’ve done anything to deserve it, but because I want you to hear what I say to your Mistress. Perhaps between the two of you, you will have enough sense to survive another decade or so.”
Go, Dev. Do as she says. I’m all right.
Though he had his doubts about that, Dev rose. As he did, a hint of sharp fang appeared beneath Lyssa’s curled lip. “Given the evening’s circumstances, I will let your defiance pass. But never again refuse a vampire that outranks your Mistress, unless it is at her direction you do so. You may deprive her of a servant in as little time as it takes to rip a man’s heart out of his chest.” Her eyes held his so intently Dev felt pinned by the hypnotic gaze of a serpent. “And believe me, it takes very little time.”
“Lyssa.” Danny struggled up to her elbows. Dev wanted to help her, but before he could step forward, Thomas’s hand was on his arm, drawing him back.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he muttered. “In this mood, my lady is apt to put you through a wall. And your head could cause these walls serious damage.”
He saw then that Lyssa had moved in, helped Danny to rise. With some pride in his sheila, however, he saw she shook her head at further assistance, putting her feet to the floor and bracing herself in the upright position, though it looked as if a feather could knock her down.
Despite that, and the fact her torn and bloody shirt was still open, she sat straight and tall, unconcerned about her appearance. “I am at your disposal, my lady Lyssa,” she said.
“You are at the end of my last nerve, is what you are. You came here, by yourself, thinking that you could outwit a five-hundred-year-old vampire into playing a game by your rules.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Do I need you to confirm the obvious? Don’t speak until I give you leave to do so. The problem with born vampires is they’re often overly spoiled by their parents, leading them to overconfidence in their abilities.” Dev noted, with some relief, that while Danny’s eyes flashed, she pressed her lips together and remained silent. Even Thomas seemed tense and alert, not a good sign. She’d held her own, though, damn it. Lyssa had to give her that.
As if she heard him, the vampiress continued. “You have great potential, Danny. I know your desires are simple ones. But my hope is that you have now learned we only have any peace and enjoyment in our lives if the remaining ninety percent of our time we remain vigilant. You have finally grown up enough to take a servant.” She glanced toward Dev. “He seems to have the mettle, and perhaps a stable core that will help balance your flightier moments.”
“With all due respect, my lady, I thought my actions through thoroughly.”
“Did you now?” Lyssa eyed her with a cringe-worthy disdain. “So you told the Council your complaints about Ruskin. When they did not respond the way you wished, your backup plan was to come back here and launch a one-woman vigilante strike against him. Oh, and as a side matter, dispatch your mother’s lover. It succeeded, only because of your servant’s loyalty to you, as well as my regard and Alistair’s, and that was all luck. If we had arrived an hour later, you would have been defeated, and you would have been Lord Charles’s to punish for however many decades he felt it necessary to underscore his authority in this territory.” Lyssa rose then, paced across the room. Dev didn’t need any help from Thomas this time to know it would be wise to try to blend with the wall as much as possible. When the ancient vampire turned back, Danny was staring at the wall, but there was a misery to her face.
“I am sorry to have disappointed you, Lady Lyssa. I . . . I never wished to take advantage of our friendship. I hold it a great honor.
Dev shouldn’t have—”
“Dev did exactly what he should have done. It is you who failed in this instance. You could have tried again with the Council,” Lyssa said curtly. “Visited Region Masters such as Alistair. Brought them here as unexpected guests during this upcoming gathering Ruskin was planning. Let them see the children, then bring them to speak before the Council with you. I was visiting, and had I seen them, I would have lent my voice to your appeal. Patience is an important virtue for vampires, Danny.”
“They didn’t have that kind of time, my lady. He was taking more children to replace those he lost during his hunts.”
“You are noble, but a dead noble idiot serves no one. Intolerable suffering occurs every moment, Lady D. Stopping any instance of it, effectively, permanently, often requires planning. Time. Patience. ” Dev had changed his mind. He didn’t like Lyssa’s ability to bring the temperature of a room down to arctic levels at all.
“Through our help, you are now Region Master, able to assist in a far more potent way.” She sighed, made another lap around the room and stared out the window. “But if you insist on acting in this impetuous manner, it will be taken from you in no time. So I am faced with the interesting question of whether you are ready for the position you’ve just taken by force. Or if I should recommend to the Council that you be chastened for your rash act and relegated to a territory in Europe where we can keep a closer eye on you.”
Lyssa was in profile to Dev now. His reaction to her words was likely no less violent than Danny’s. His blond sheila’s head whipped around, her blue eyes widening. “My lady, you couldn’t—”
“I couldn’t what, Lady Daniela?” She arched a brow, turning to look at Danny. “I will do whatever I feel is necessary to protect you. From yourself, as well as others. Before today, the general opinion was that Lady Daniela, daughter of Lady Constance, was a lovely young vampire whose main political value was whose arm she would choose or be compelled to adorn. A nonentity except for the circumstances of her birth.”
Danny rose from the couch then, and her eyes flashed in a way that had Dev tensing, particularly when he saw Thomas doing the same. “And after today, my lady?”
Lyssa considered her. “The tragedy is that as word of this spreads, many will think that has changed. That you are a force to be reckoned with. A force that should be tested and challenged, not admired like a harmless hothouse rose.”
“I am not, nor have I ever been, anyone’s political pawn,” Danny spat. “I won’t allow myself to be used that way. Vampires willing to be led hope for Fate to give them someone with fairness and intelligence, and the power to protect them. I don’t know if I have the power to resist every vampire who would try to take this territory from me, but I have the other two.”
“You use that intelligence to make them believe you have that power. That goes for your allies as much as your enemies. Because a powerful vampire has far more allies than a weak one.”
“I’ll learn—”
“Then do so, damn you. Before I am too late and standing over your body. Or I am forced to see you become some broken, dispirited thing subverted to the will of a monster like Ruskin.”
Lyssa’s fierce directive reverberated through the room as if a cannon had been shot off right outside the window. Dev felt the vibration through his chest, his head, the soles of his feet. And even as the power of it overwhelmed him, the tension that she actually might do something to harm his lady loosened within him.
